The present invention relates to an apparatus for releasably attaching articles to a web, and deals more particularly with a device for attaching items arranged along a strip with formed tabs to which the items are readily hung for sale to consumers in a store or a like sales establishment.
Items which are sold at retail or wholesale are usually not fully saleable until mounted onto a display or rack. Such displays or racks are usually necessary in order to present the product in the most appealable manner possible. Also, these structures efficiently use valuable floor and shelf space. Items which are not systematically arranged in this way tend to lose their marketability, especially with products whose sales rely on impulse buying at the point of sale location. Also, items, such as photofilm, batteries, utensils, baby products, snack foods and toys are often displayed on such racks. The packaging for these products and many other products include pre-formed slots or circular openings which are cut into the packaging of the product which allow the product to be hung on existing display structures within the retail or wholesale establishment. The problem associated with such display devices is that they require the retail or wholesale establishment to employ individuals to stock items which are shipped as separate individual pieces, and thereafter need to be rendered marketable by displaying them in a uniform manner. As such, standard stocking practices require manual placement of each item onto a rack. This practice tends to be costly. In an attempt to reduce the need to stock each item onto a rack, manufacturers, distributors and the like have attempted to prepackage the items so that they are shipped attached along strips which can readily be hung at the store. In this way, only the strips need be hung. Since each strip may carry between 10 to 20 items, the demand on the store personnel for stocking is reduced by this order as well. The strips used are web-like plastic material which have punched interdigitated tab members disposed along the length thereof and effect hooking of the packaging material through one of the openings or slots formed therein so that the items can be hung in a serial manner along the strip. However, the placing of items onto the tabs of the strips while not the responsibility of the seller of the product, can require equal manpower demands in the loading of individual items to the strips. This is because the tabs punched on the webs are normally closed unto themselves and exist coextensive with the remaining web material so that the user who is responsible for attaching the items with the web, must cause the tabs to be opened in order that the web receive the involved items. Often, it is desired that the strips contain a given number of items so that the items may be displayed uniformly on a rack or the like. This means that after a given number of items are attached to the strip, the strip must thereafter be cut and the items together thus packed as a single unit.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus which is capable of receiving a hang-strip web in which is contained a plurality of successively oriented hang tabs which, through the intermediary of the operation of the apparatus, are caused to be opened and permit an item to be inserted within the opening of the otherwise closed interdigitated tabs.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an apparatus of the aforementioned type wherein a given number of items can be successively attached to a hang-strip web and thereafter the web is automatically cut to a specific item length with the given number of items remaining attached to the cut length of the hang strip web.
Still a further object of the invention is to provide an apparatus of the aforementioned type whereby strips which provide single or double tabs can be used to mount items to either a single tab or a double tab attachment point on the web.
Further objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description and the appended claims.